A View from the Bridge (Hotels in Dublin in general)

Member Name: michaelhudson

Product:	Hotels in Dublin in general
Date:	01/07/03 (571 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Central location, Friendly staff, Clean and spacious rooms

Disadvantages: Small breakfast area

On the busy periphery of Temple Bar, visibly equidistant to the south bank of the Liffey and the classical façade of City Hall, the two star Bridge House fills the upper floors of two neighbouring Georgian townhouses on the western side of the bar and restaurant lined Parliament Street.

ARRIVAL

A red door splits two entrances to the Bella Roma restaurant, rising to a small triangular sign and a larger blue and yellow board above bearing the name of the hotel. I press the buzzer, wait, skirt the 'Fresh Paint' sign and walk up a single flight of stairs to the tiny reception area. A small desk crammed into a corner guards the entrance to a diminutive lounge-cum-breakfast area with tables temporarily surrounded by departing guests' luggage, a portable TV playing quietly in the corner and a free newspaper folded next to pots of tea and coffee. A signature, a key, and it's up six more suburban house sized flights of stairs covered in foot sagging deep blue carpets to my room on the fourth floor.


THE ROOMS

The door opens at the first attempt to a view of a bathroom door, an off-white wall, a hairdryer on a twisting cord, a clothes rail in the corner and a folding chair stacked with fluffy towels underneath. Stepping inside, two crooked pictures hang above a pine headboard, facing a wall mounted portable TV in the corner and a window in the far wall which, swung open from the bottom, fills the room with the whir of engine noise from the street down below. A yellow lamp stands on a chest of drawers separating two beds, a remote control placed diagonally on top. Everything is spick and span like a newly furnished guest room in a leafy, lace curtained Victorian commuter town - conservative, respectable, clean, and familiar down to the radiator under the window sill and the British terrestrial channels I spend twenty seconds idly flicking through on the way to RTE, MTV, the Discovery Channel, Sky One and Sky News.
r>The view from the window starts with streetlights on the Liffey as it flows up to the concrete edge of Grattan Bridge, the pale green dome of Penney's Department Store away to the north in the middle of Henry Street and a section of the city's sky high ring of cranes behind. Directly opposite, a copper brewing kettle stands in an upstairs window of the red brick, green wood Porter House pub, and the cobbled start line of Temple Bar stretches across the beginning of Essex Street East. Lights flicker on along the lower floors of the four-storey Georgian buildings, illuminating the front of a late night Spar, Zaytoon Persian restaurant and the Little Sicily eatery next door.

Into the brightly lit bathroom, where spotless blue and white tiles surround a circular mirror, a slightly undersized sink and a basket of soap curiously absent of shampoo. Three sliding plastic panels open to a shower big enough to stand three people in comfort (not that I tried, honest) and a hot water control that requires just a few seconds of tweaking to get the best temperature.

BREAKFAST

At a quarter to eight in the morning the breakfast room is deserted as I take up my seat next to a window overlooking the bustling street outside. A table wedged between two corners of a back wall holds a big bowl of fruit, plastic containers full of Rice Krispies and cornflakes, a sliced loaf of soda bread, a small row of yoghurt pots, packets of butter and fruit jam, apple pastries, scones full of raisins, ring doughnuts crammed with custard and glass jugs of milk and orange juice. The quantities of each seem a little limited, and the choice is perhaps not as extensive as it could be, but complemented by a full coffee pot, a basket full of tea bags and a large hot water dispenser, it's a more than adequate start to the day. By a quarter past eight most of the guests - a few couples in their mid to late-thirties, a backpacker and a family of four - are milling around
the room, and with standing room only I forgo my fourth trip to the box of doughnuts and head back upstairs.

DETAILS

Bridge House. 24 - 25 Parliament Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Breakfast is served from 7.30 to 11am. Complimentary tea and coffee are available all day.

The breakfast room has only four tables (one for six people, one for four, and two tables for two) so it's probably better to come down either very early or quite late.

Reception is open 24 hours. Press the buzzer and state your room number.

Earliest check in is at 2pm.

The hotel has 20 en suite rooms, comprising 4 singles, 3 doubles, 3 twins, 9 triples and 1 quad. All rooms were fully refurbished in 1999.

There is no lift as Bridge House is situated in a listed building. The lowest rooms (numbers 1,2 and 3) are on the first floor next to reception.

Most of Dublin's major attractions are within a ten-minute walk of the hotel, including Temple Bar, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, O'Connell Street, Trinity College, Grafton Street, the Ha'penny Bridge, the Four Courts and the Bank of Ireland building. The Guinness Brewery, the National Gallery, St. Stephen's Green, Newman House, Merrion Square and the National Museum (Archaeology and History) are all but a short distance further.

The nearest drop-off point for the Aircoach service from Dublin Airport is Trinity College (www.aircoach.ie). Follow Dame Street in a westerly direction for Parliament Street.

Dublin Bus number 748 also runs close to the hotel along Wellington Quay. There are no parking facilities at the hotel itself.

I stayed at Bridge House for one night on June 17th 2003. The high season room rate was £60 with Octopus Travel (www.octopustravel.com).

OVERALL

Bridge House is neither the cheapest nor the best hotel I've ever stayed in. You can definitely get lower prices elsewhere in Dubl
in - the guesthouses in Lower Gardiner Street being a good bet if you?re on a budget - but the location and cleanliness of the hotel, combined with the friendly staff, just about edge it up to a four star rating.


WEBSITES

www.hosteldublin.com

www.dublin-hotels.net/bridge-house/

www.about-dublin-hotels.ie/hotelinfo.asp?hotel =1083

www.hotel-ireland.com/bridge-house/

http://dublin.city-centre-hotels.com/temple-ba r-hotels.html

www.visitdublin.com